Everyone Loves a Good Story
Stories are passed down through the ages. They provide us valuable life lessons, inspire us to reach beyond our horizons and repair our souls when in need.
Here you will find a collection of my own personal stories and articles that aim to entertain while highlighting practical philosophies for personal development. Whether your goal is becoming a strong leader, building teams, battling depression, overcoming adversity, discovering some meaning and purpose or just wrestling with the process of growing up, I hope my stories will help with that navigation.
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Adventures at The War Hotel
Strange Bedfellows; War and Luxury Hotels History is full of instances where luxury hotels have played an interesting and purposeful role during war and conflict, often taking on their own lore and legendary status. Some famous ones are The Commodore in Beirut, The Holiday Inn in Sarajevo, and The Al Rashid in Baghdad. During conflicts,…
Life is Like a Novel, But You’re Not The Author
The Fallacy of Writing that Next Chapter If you convince yourself that you’re the author of your story, you may be creating a glitch in the system; your mind. You’ve heard that call to action many times, “Write your next chapter!” This statement is meant to empower us, to pick us up from the last…
C.K. Redlinger’s Speech – Marine Corps Birthday Ball
Last week, we celebrated hundreds of years of combat prowess and fighting efficiency as the United States Marine Corps turned 246 years old on November 10th. I had the distinct honor of being invited as the guest speaker for the Marine Corps League’s Marine Birthday Ball Celebration in South Atlanta, Georgia, Detachment 1196. My main…
Video Interview – Career Advice w/C.K. Redlinger
From Professors Without Borders: In today’s video, Charles K. Redlinger focuses on his career as a Homicide Detective with the DeKalb County Police Department. However, C.K. has had an extensive and exciting career trajectory as a Marine, SWAT Sniper, Military Contractor, TV/Movie Advisor and corporate security professional. With such a varied background, C.K. now also…
The Thundering Velvet Hands of 13 Warriors
Despite the tremendous pain we feel for the loss of these 13 young souls to the Heavens, there remains a spark of light ignited by their actions. In the minutes, hours and days before their departure, they comforted the suffering and desperate. An enduring solace is found from the artifacts that show these 13 Warriors…
Cultivate Mindset like a Marine
Mindset – The Key to the Kill House In 1992, I didn’t learn how to cultivate a desired mindset at a wellness retreat, sitting around a bunch of crosslegged participants intending to achieve a greater level of consciousness. I was taught it prior to entering a “Kill House” (aka Shoot House, or Tire House), where…
The Young Man Whispered, “I Want to be Like Him”
Paragons and Paladins Paragon applies to someone who is a model of perfection in some quality or trait. Someone who is the perfect embodiment of a concept, like a role model. If you ask a Cop who their role models are, chances are they will be other cops, individuals they learned from and tried to imitate. Cops…
It’s Been Ten Years Dad
It’s been ten years Dad. Ten years since you vanished from this place, ten years since the world has seen your face. While your soul is finally at peace, peace is often elusive for me. Ten…oh what an odd thing. Such an even and perfect sum. Yet it’s just a long start to the eternal…
C.K. Interview – Careers In The Film Industry
I love doing these Nepris interviews for kids. It is such a great tool for exposing young people, looking to make decisions about their career direction, to learn from others’ experiences regardless of where they are physically located in the country. In this interview, we talk about my very unusual, and funny, break into the…
C.K. Interview – Forensics Investigations
I was recently interviewed by high school students studying the topic of forensics. We covered a lot of ground, including crime scenes, murder investigations, careers in law enforcement, court testimony, mindset, and even how police procedural TV shows get it wrong. Click here to watch the video. If you cannot immediately watch the video, you may…
How Halloween Teaches Camaraderie and Breeds Cohesion
While Halloween 2020 took a solid punch to the liver by COVID-19, it remains the reigning champion of holidays for camaraderie-building. In my opinion, it’s actually the healthiest holiday for kids. Now that might sound crazy due to all the candy in play, but I’m referring to mental health and social development. Let’s level set…
The Human Soul shines amidst Tragedy
The City that Never Sleeps The first time I traveled to New York City was in 1996. I remember how breathtaking the city was from my window seat on the airplane. I can only imagine that same view must have been horrifying for the passengers of those two planes, 19 years ago today. During my…
The French Connection
It was the summer of 2003 and there was no shortage of tragedy and conflict in the world. The first quarter of the year saw the Space Shuttle Columbia explode and disintegrate as it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, and the lead up to summer was consumed by the invasion of Iraq, which quickly evolved into…
Memorial Day Reflections – “Earn This”
For many of us, Memorial Day symbolizes the beginning of summer. But more importantly, it’s a day of remembrance. A day to reflect and be thankful for the brave Americans who have laid such a costly sacrifice on the altar of freedom.
C.K. Interview – Homicide Detectives & FBI Profilers
I recently volunteered to be interviewed by a high school student with a passion to seek justice for murder victims. She has her sights set on either a homicide detective or FBI profiler. In this video interview, I help her to understand the difference and educate her on the various roles involved in investigating and…
Remember that time…? When Homicide Cops Reminisce
“The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces” I’ve heard it said that sometimes you don’t know the value of a moment until it actually becomes a memory. As I hit my 50th Birthday this week, pay tribute to my father’s next week and near the anniversary of…
When Life Punches You in the Face: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome
Sometimes life can be a real son-of-a-brick, enter the ultimate uninvited guest, COVID-19. Speaking of Bricks, I have officially given the Coronavirus the face and personality of that ruthless gangster from the classic movie “Snatch”, Brick Top. I can’t think of a better persona for it? If you have not seen the movie Snatch, well..there’s…
Role Models: Two Men Named John
Who was that Masked-Man? “A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver! The Lone Ranger! … With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States! Nowhere in…
Intuition, A Cry from Beyond the Grave
Gut Feelings, what are they? A lot has been written about human intuition and its power to communicate, even I have covered this topic here. Stories of people acting on their gut feelings are out there for good reason. Simply put, these are the unexplained feelings we get about something being wrong but have no…
What are you Afraid of, My Boy?
Fear of Death and Loss What are you afraid of, my boy? Is it the pale moon in the night sky or a bump in the dark that makes you cry? There is unease about you, and this angst is dragging you down. So, what is it that’s behind this horrible frown? Is it death…
How Sheepish Leadership Suffocates Courage
You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do – Carl Jung Recently, a senior ranking firefighter in Atlanta made a split-second decision to rush into a burning home to rescue a 95-year-old woman. It’s reported he could see here inside on the floor surrounded by smoke and flames. He entered the building,…
Struggling to Keep an Exercise Routine? Reprogram your Brain
The Psychology of it You know the feeling? You start the morning with some convincing internal dialog promising you will hit the gym after work or sometime later in the day. Fast forward, now it’s late in the afternoon and that thought of exercising has clawed its way back to your mind’s front door like…
Watching the Super Bowl with Muhammad Ali
And So it Begins It’s true! 20 years ago today, I watched Super Bowl XXXIV with “The Greatest” himself. Here’s how it all went down. It was January 2000, we had just survived the Y2K scare and now it was Superbowl weekend in Atlanta, Georgia with the Rams about to face off against the Titans.…
Idris Elba: A Modern-Day Movie Star with Old-School Style
I recently ran into Idris Elba at an event in Dallas. While I have not had the pleasure to technically advise on one of his movies, I continue to admire his work from afar and find myself including him as one of my favorite actors. Additionally, as an actor, he has that special something, a…
Lessons from the Police Academy
Today marks the 25th Anniversary of 31 officers starting their journey with the DeKalb County Police Department. I wanted to share some experiences during that 6-month police academy. Starting with a little background, I joined the DeKalb County Police Department right out of the Marines. It was my 2nd goal in life, just after becoming a…
Cultivate a Mindset for Adversity
The Night is Darkest just before the Light “If it’s too hard for everyone else, it’s just right for us Butterfields”. This is what my grandfather would always say to his six sons and two daughters, one of whom was my mother (Elaine Butterfield-Redlinger). Only a few were old enough to serve during World War…
Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day, but today it’s all about The Marines!
Just last week, I was in Los Angeles and had made a quick stop at a Starbucks to grab a coffee before a meeting. I saw a LAPD officer at the register ordering, so I darted over in an attempt to buy his coffee. He politely refused, but the cashier was on my side and…
Superman, Indiana Jones and my take on Facing Adversity
On one summer night in 1981, I was visiting family in Jacksonville, NC. I was just 11 years old and some other kids and I were preparing to go to the movies and see the highly anticipated Superman II sequel, starring Christopher Reeves. I can still remember the fun and excitement we enjoyed all day, knowing that…
Enhance your Situational Awareness
Mind, Mitigate, then Repeat – Basics for your Modern Security Posture “Mind and mitigate”, Is that even a thing? I mean those two words packaged together to form a clever way of coupling situational awareness and risk controls. OK, If I actually just coined it, then you have to mention my name every time you say it…
Good Deeds and the Courage to Act
Do you recognize this picture from that scene in “Batman Begins”? Lieutenant Jim Gordon places his coat on a young Bruce Wayne following the murder of his parents. Later, in the sequel movie, “The Dark Knight Rises”, the now Commissioner Gordon asks Batman to reveal his identity, so the world could know the hero that was about to…
Tribe Mentality in Business
Looking at the picture above, you might not arrive to the conclusion that I’m necessarily happy. Just to be clear, I’m the homicide detective on the right (not the suspect 😊). In fact, I’m completely ecstatic and elated with joy in this moment! Why? Because I belonged to a group consisting of 20 individuals, who relied upon and needed…
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